The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Above: that horribly mangled & awkward Oath of Office.

NBC and ABC say the flub was Roberts’, while the AP says it was Obama’s.

Chris Wallace wonders:

But calm down, though.

Language Log parses:

“In the embedded clause of the oath, the adverb faithfully is properly positioned after the auxiliary will (1). If you miss the adverb as it is placed in the official wording, you have two more chances for inserting it in a coherent fashion: placing faithfully after the verb execute (2) or placing it at the end of the clause (3):

that I will 1 execute 2 the office of President of the United States 3

Roberts does indeed miss his opportunity to put faithfully in position 1, perhaps thrown by Obama repeating the opening phrase of the oath earlier than he expected. In Roberts’ first attempt, faithfully ends up in clause-final position 3. Obama seems to realize that the placement is wrong, but repeats the first part of the clause all the way through to the verb: that I will execute. There’s no possibility of getting faithfully back to position 1 at this point, but Roberts gets as close as he can by placing it in position 2, immediately after the verb, in his second attempt. Obama ignores the self-repair, however, and ends up repeating the misplaced version that Roberts originally supplied, with faithfully in clause-final position 3.”

Click on this link to learn about another botched oath; the world - or a presidency - didn’t end there, either.

ABC asked Obama about it last night; read what he had to say here.

FURTHER READING: Newsweek’s Dahlia Lithwick on the connection between the Bible used yesterday, two Presidents, & two Supreme Court justices.

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